They Mostly Come Out At Night (10 page)

"You don't believe that it is?"

"Do you?"

Lonan thought again about this.
There are too many coincidences for me not to believe it, now. Mother Ogma's description of the totem pole, the scratch marks on Branwen's cottage. And then there’s Adahy. I’ve been inside his mind twice now, and it felt too… real. This isn’t a little offset of my own mind that feels sorry for itself and needs a hug. I’ve been feeling the emotions and hearing the thoughts of a real person.
Lonan simply nodded his head.

"If it's true, if the Magpie King has been watching us for all of this time and he's now dead, then there are dark times ahead."

Lonan looked up and gave a desperate little grin. "But things were going so well."

She chuckled at that. Moving to Harlow's side to ensure he was tucked in, she changed the conversation topic. "So, it seems that young mister Quarry has a bit of a talent for making people do what he wants."

Lonan raised his eyebrows at this. "You noticed?"

"I've had my suspicions for a while, but this morning confirmed it."

"Took you long enough." Lonan sniffed and rubbed his nose. "Thought I'd always be the only one. That maybe that was my Knack or something…"

"No, your Knack should have been your father's. The village sorely needs a proper smith. That young fool certainly doesn't have the Knack for it, despite what he's convinced us all for so long. How long has he been able to do that, exactly?"

Lonan looked her in the eyes. "Since the night my father died."

That was when Aileen started to scream.

There was no mistaking it was Lonan's sister as she was screaming for her brother at the top of her voice. It pierced the night like a knife.

"No," was all that Mother Ogma could manage.

Panic welled within Lonan. His first reaction was to shout and scream for his sister, but he fought himself and brought those instincts under control. They had not served him well in the past. More voices joined Aileen's now. Lonan was fairly certain they were those of his mother and Branwen. He scanned the cellar madly, hungry for a way to move forward. His eyes landed on the oil lamp. He leapt up the cellar stairs and put his ear to the door.

"Can't you hear them well enough already?" Mother Ogma fretted, but Lonan waved her silent. After a few moments he jumped down, grabbed the oil lamp and jumped back up the steps again.

He turned to the old woman. "I'm pretty sure there's nothing upstairs. As soon as I'm out, close the door again, quietly."

Mother Ogma, eyes wide, looked confused for brief moments before she realised what Lonan was proposing. "No. You can't do this. What exactly do you think you are going to do up there?"

Lonan shrugged. "Save my sister? Kill a few Wolves? At the very least, offer them an easier target? It's not as if I was looking to amount to much anyway." With that, he pushed open the heavy cellar door, shuttered the oil lamp and slipped out into the dark cottage.

He blinked hard, forcing his eyes to adjust to the moonlight as quickly as possible. Every muscle was screaming for him to scramble back to the trapdoor in the floor and beat his hands bloody on it until he was safe underground. The only thing goading him forward was the continued wailing of the women in his life.

He scanned his mother's cottage, his breathing coming sharply, his eyes frantically searching for anything out of the ordinary. He had left the front door of his mother’s cottage slightly ajar, and now inched himself towards it, his fear of the night forcing him to scuttle along the floor like a wounded spider.

Upon reaching the open portal, he peered outside and gasped at the white light of the night. Lonan had always pictured night time as blackness, with the moon painting a blue hue across the landscape. But the light from the moon was a brilliant white, perfectly illuminating the white washed walls of the village cottages. Other than the unnaturalness of this time of day, Lonan's eyes could not spot anything unusual in the village.

Going out of the front door seemed like madness, so Lonan turned himself around and pushed himself through one of the side windows. Laying low to the grass, one arm cradling the shuttered lamp, Lonan urged himself across the green towards the Dripper cottage, still a few buildings away from where all the screaming was coming from. Reaching the cottage he huddled into the corner between the wall and the ground, fully expecting to hear the noise of pursuit after his panicked dash. Lonan moved from cottage to cottage like this, at every advancement counting his blessings that he was undiscovered and steeling himself for the next small stage in his journey. As he moved closer to the Quarry household, other noises began to mix with the screaming. The sound of wood being chipped away at. Growling. What Lonan was sure was snarling.

Finally he was there, outside of Quarry's house. Lonan had not actually expected to get this far, and now found himself slightly unsure of how to proceed. The noises from the animals inside were overpowering, inhuman groans that Lonan was convinced could not actually be a form of even basic communication.

He edged himself along the wall towards a window and urged his body to look inside. It refused. Lonan, panting, was dumbfounded. He had never before found it so hard to perform such a basic function, to have his own body fight against him. He forced himself again, pushing his head inch by inch towards the glass. The thatched roof came into view, then the rafters, the whitewashed walls and then the monsters. He caught a glimpse of black, a single knotted limb lifted high in the air before descending on the cellar door with a thunk and a howl. Lonan's body took over and pulled him back from the window.

"Lonan!"

His sister's cry was the catalyst he needed. He took a breath, uncapped the flask of oil that he had clasped to his belt, ran to the front door and threw it into the blackness inside, closely followed by the naked flame of the lamp. The interior of the cottage erupted into a blaze of fire and inhuman howls. Lonan, however, had not stuck around to witness this. He had already made it most of the way to the forest bordering the village, his effortless sprint powered by the fear that he now allowed to overcome him.

He stumbled through the vegetation, the greenery taking on a completely different character in the moonlight. Not having time to appreciate the change, Lonan kept running. When he felt his legs and lungs were close to giving out, he cast his gaze upwards to the gnarled branches he so often climbed in search of fruit and seeds for Ogma’s pharmacy. Bloodying his knuckles as he did so, Lonan pulled himself upwards until he was in the canopy. He found a nook to rest himself in, and studied the ground below intently. Any small movement, swaying of leaves or nocturnal animal wanderings caught Lonan's eye.

It was not long, however, before his pursuers made their appearance. He could make out the movement of two black masses on the ground below him, glimpses of darkness glaring at him through the autumn leaves. The sense of inevitability about his fate actually made it easier to bear, and he marvelled at the gliding motion of the evil below him, moving smoothly over the forest ground which Lonan had tripped and stumbled his way through. He was suddenly reminded of Adahy's similar reaction to impending death and a thin, begrudging smile played on his features.

Where was that boy now? Had he survived for much longer without his father?
The shapes below moved directly towards him, and quickly disappeared from his line of vision because of the thick tree branches. They would be at the foot of the tree now and soon would have him. Lonan could not decide whether he would rather hear their approach, hear the crunching of claw embedding into wood whilst the Wolves made their climb, or would rather that they appeared at an unexpected moment, stealing away his life like rats in the night.

As the seconds turned into minutes, Lonan decided he would much rather hear them approaching. The length of this wait and the lack of information was agonising. He expected that they were toying with him now, the way that he had seen wild cats tease shrews moments before snapping their necks. He stared at the white moon that hung low over the forest, waiting for the snarl that would precede his end. His first moment of shock was when a large bird pierced the skyline that he was focussing on, breaking his tense meditation by hanging before the moon, its silhouette perfectly centred within the white orb, before disappearing back into the canopy.

His second moment of shock was when the sun rose.

When the horizon first started to turn blue, Lonan just assumed the end was about to come. The monsters had been playing him up until this point, letting him think he had survived the night, and then they would kill him just before the first rays of sunlight peeked out. When he actually saw the sun break the skyline, he gasped and looked around wildly. There was nothing there except for the branches of the oak he had sheltered in. Shaking, he clamoured down the tree, dropping the last few feet when his quivering arms gave out on him. Teeth chattering, Lonan stumbled back through the woodland. He had spent enough time with Mother Ogma to realise he was going into shock - a natural reaction to his body releasing all of the tension he had built up over the night - but all he wanted to know was what had happened at the village.

He could see from a distance that the green was busy, and a dark plume of smoke was still rising steadily from Quarry's house. Lonan rolled his eyes at the thought of the spin that Jarleth would put on that one.
If only someone had actually seen what I’d done.
Lonan shook his head.
As long as it worked, as long as they’re all safe, I don’t care what they think.

"Aileen." Lonan croaked as he came within earshot of the crowd. He had not realised how dry his throat had been, and the shouting hurt.

People turned to look at the approaching figure and the crowd parted as he ran toward them. They eventually revealed an angry Jarleth Quarry, face blackened with ash.

"Lonan." The blessed figure of his sister pushed past the blacksmith, running into the arms of her brother. 

Lonan fell to his knees, cradled the little girl, and wept in relief.

"You bastard," came the inevitable outburst from Quarry. "You destroyed my house."

Lonan raised his face from his sister's curls to regard the smoke-topped cottage. Indeed, the thatched roof had all but disappeared from it now. Without anyone in Smithsdown with a Knack for weaving new roofs, it would be some time before the home would be habitable again.

"You don't think it's an improvement?" Lonan responded weakly. "I thought it was getting a bit stuffy."

Jarleth moved with aggression towards Lonan, but Old Man Tumulty interceded with a firm hand on his shoulder. "Seems to me a straw roof is a fine price to pay for your family's lives."

"What, you don't actually believe that drivel, do you?" Lonan could see the tell-tale sparks of the Knack in Jarleth's eyes and prepared himself for the sweetness of the moment turning bitter. "It was Anvil at our door all the time. He-"

Jarleth was interrupted by a loud clap.

"That's enough of that, thank you, dearie," Mother Ogma stated sharply, breaking Jarleth's spell and earning a sneer from him. "You lot were all screaming well before he left the cellar, and I would love you to explain how he could have made those claw marks by himself or those screaming sounds everyone heard."

Other villagers nodded. There was no chance that Quarry, Knack or no, could sway them now.

"You couldn't have come up with something that didn't involve burning my home down? Are you all telling me he shouldn't be held responsible for that?"

"I guess I'm just not that good at thinking on my feet," Lonan responded, standing, heady with the positive attention he was receiving from the villagers. "Why, what had you planned to do?"

Jarleth opened his mouth to speak but struggled to respond. This was all the space that the crowd needed to interject with some chuckles.

"Come on now, everyone," Old Tumulty bellowed, waving his arms to disperse the crowd, "we've got some work to do to be ready for tonight. Reinforce your cellars. Quarry, get that forge going."

The anxious onlookers trotted back to their cottages. Aileen gave her brother another hug and ran to her mother. Lonan's mother turned and left without looking her son in the eye. Other than Mother Ogma, only Branwen Quarry remained, clutching her sleeping baby to her chest. The young woman was staring right at Lonan, lip trembling.

"Branwen?" Lonan questioned.

She turned and trotted back home to her husband, wiping her face with her free hand as she walked.

Mother Ogma took Lonan's arm. "I think someone has done you a great wrong there, dearie."

"Huh," he replied. For the majority of Lonan's life, Branwen's ruined face had been a reminder of how hated he was in the village. It had been a long time since she had looked on him with anything other than disgust. For the second time in as many days, the thought of Branwen threatened to bring a smile to Lonan’s face.

"Have you slept yet?" the old lady queried.

Lonan laughed. "Artemis' beard, no. I don't think anyone could have."

"Let's head back, dearie. I can tell you've got a story that I need to hear."

Lonan allowed himself to be led back to the healer's cottage, now feeling safe enough to let his exhaustion show. He mumbled his story to the old lady, certain that half of it did not make sense. Harlow was waiting for them in his sitting chair, staring glass-eyed at the cottage wall. Mother Ogma led Lonan down the cellar steps and tucked him into bed.